Perspectives
by liberator of captured angels
Summary: Lirael's parents ponder the events leading up to her conception, and wonder what the repercussions of what they have done will be.
1. Terciel

Lirael's parents muse upon the conception of their daughter. Terciel's up first.

**Disclaimer: **I'm clearly not Garth Nix

**Terciel's Perspective**

Terciel wondered for perhaps the thousandth time at the visit of his young cousin, the Clayr woman Arielle. He had certainly been surprised that such a young one of her kind would seek him out, particularly with so strange a message. Not a message calling for his aid in banishing some uncontrollable free magic spirit, or legions of Dead creatures that had become all too common in the last 200 years, but a most unprecedented request of him. No, perhaps not merely a request, it was fate that he and his young cousin would lie together, to produce a child.

Strange that he should become a father again at fifty years of age, to a woman he had not met before the day of the child's conception, a woman barely seven years older than his already living daughter. What would Sabriel think, he wondered with a smile, at the knowledge that she was to become a sister at her age?

He had to confess to himself a slightly selfish worry. What did the appearance of a child mean for Sabriel? He loved his daughter more even than his own life, and although she had a tough path to follow, he hoped only the best for her. He had no doubt that the child who was even now in Arielle's womb was to someday become the Abhorsen, upon the death of Sabriel. He did not want his daughter to die in her youth, but to have many years, even though much of those years would be spent treading her path through death. He knew well, having traversed death to the ninth gate in the binding of many of the Greater Dead, and some necromancers, that everyone and everything has a time to die. He just wished that his daughter's death would be many years in coming.

Another thought then sprang to his mind. Did this mean his daughter might never have children? After all, the family of the Abhorsen had dwindled greatly, and he and Sabriel were the last now living. Perhaps he was the only of the Abhorsen left able to carry on the Blood. He so hoped, for Sabriel's sake, that this was not to be so. After all, it was woman's right to be granted the gift of bearing children, and denying Sabriel this when she was already denied the gift of a normal life would be too cruel.

He remembered his own words, and the words of his young cousin, about the child who would not know either parent throughout her life. He pitied the child her lack of parents, but he could not grieve himself for the child he would never know. After all, she was begat by prophecy, not out of love. He did not love his young cousin as he had loved his late wife, had not watched as the child grew in the mother's womb as he had with Sabriel, and would not be around to grow attached to her as she grew. Had he not believed that she would be well looked after, of course, he would have made provisions for her. However, he knew of the Clayr well, and of all the Blood, their numbers had dwindled least. The child would have more family than she knew what to do with. Though she would likely be an orphan, she would not want for companions.

In any case, he must prepare to leave for what he suspected was his final time. Or, if not this time, the next time, or the next. After all, it was now Sabriel's time. She was now an adult, and had blossomed into her powers. Even the sendings seemed to suspect. He detected it in a subtle restlessness, a boding of change, a new power ready to come into its own. One did not always need to be Clayr to be able to know what the future held.

He was slightly saddened on behalf of Sabriel, because he had never been the father he had always wanted to be to her, and he mourned her loss of the simple pleasures she indulged in across the Wall in Ancelstierre. But though he mourned for Sabriel's loss, he spared no tears for himself. After all, everyone and everything had a time to die. Including the Abhorsen.


	2. Arielle

Arielle's turn this time.

**Disclaimer: **Again, not Garth Nix. For a start, I'm not even Australian. Never even been there

**Arielle's Perspective**

As Arielle made her way up the Ratterlin, back to her home in the Clayr's Glacier, she put a hand to her abdomen, in the region of her womb. The womb in which there was now, she knew, a child, her daughter.

She had wondered about this since she was a young girl. When she would become pregnant, have a child. The reality was far different from her expectations. She hadn't expected something so removed from the passions of the men she had bedded since her passage into adulthood, the visitors in the Clayr she had invited to her bed. Of course, she protected herself from pregnancy then, because she wanted her child to be conceived with someone special, not just the result of any of the casual relationships she had entered into with men, the fleeting ardour she had shared with a handful of men.

Well, her partner in the creation of her daughter _was_ special of course. Just not in the way she had imagined. And she already loved the life that grew within her, as much as if there had been any love or passion in her making.

She knew that her cousin the Abhorsen would spare little more thought for the child they had created than wonderment at the absurdity with which it was brought about. After all, he had a daughter grown, and it was evident that he loved her deeply, and needed no more children than she. It was also evident that he still loved his wife, even eighteen years after her death, from the brief flash of pain in his face as her mentioned her. He was therefore as emotionally detached from Arielle's daughter as it was possible for a father to be.

In truth, this did not bother Arielle much. After all, who among the Clayr could tell much of their father, beyond their name? Lirael, for that she would call the child after her favourite aunt, would not have even that. There would be too many uncomfortable questions asked if she relinquished the father's name to the Clayr, and she wanted her child to have as normal a childhood as possible. It was, of course, unheard of not to record the father's name, and she would not be free from uncomfortable questions and speculation. However, that would more easily be borne than the difficulties which would arise if it were generally known that Arielle carried the child of the Abhorsen.

Although the prospect of Lirael growing up parentless would not affect the Abhorsen in any greater magnitude of sorrow than an impartial observer, Arielle mourned for the daughter she would only know for a few short years. Although as a Clayr she had the Sight, and could See many fragments of futures which might come to pass, it was her intuition, rather than her Sight, that told her she would spend as much time with her child as possible. She had calculated, from a vision she had, that she had only four or five years to be with her child. She had Seen herself undertaking a journey, when she was thirty years of age, or perhaps a little older, one from which she would not return alive. She had been granted another vision, one the gift to all the Clayr – or the Sighted daughters, for she knew Lirael would be Sightless – of the time preceding her death, when she was slightly older, perhaps around five or six and thirty or so. She did not fear death, nor grieve for herself, but for the child who would barely remember the mother who had loved her even before she was conceived.

She had Seen her in a vision, one of three visions pertaining to her daughter. The first vision had been the one of her daughter's conception. She was thankful that none of her cousins in the Glacier had been privy to _that_ vision.

The second was many, many years into the future, a vision of her daughter in her adulthood. Though she stood alone in the vision, she felt sure that her daughter would forge her own path in life, and have many friends and a family to call her own. Her daughter was so beautiful that it made her weep, so beautiful, and sorrowful, yet not without hope. She was strong, the daughter in her vision, a warrior with a hand of gold, wearing a dark surcoat dusted with silver stars and keys, wielding a bandoleer of the curious bells of the Abhorsen, a sword at her waist. She bore shining dark eyes with a steely will, her long black hair gleaming, her skin as deathly white as her father's. One look at this beautiful woman made Arielle shiver, and feel hope for the future of the Old Kingdom which slid deeper into ruin with each passing day.

The third, and final vision she had experienced in relation to her daughter had occurred while she was in a Paperwing, preparing to leave the house of the Abhorsen. She had Seen Lirael near the Wall which separated the Old Kingdom from Ancelstierre. Not alone, but surrounded by a young man, a large dog, which she knew was a more than it seemed, and a cat which she knew was really a Free Magic servant of the Abhorsen. The cat had been handing her a parcel when she received that vision, though he held the shape of an albino dwarf when she saw him. But she knew, and she charged him with relaying a message to her daughter, a message she could not give herself, for when she saw Lirael for the final time, her daughter would be too young to understand the message, and too young to remember it later anyway.

The pain of the thought she was not to see her daughter grow was already intense, so intense that if she could prevent the future, she would do so to steal more time with that beautiful woman of her vision. She knew it was futile. She had not received the brief flashes of futures which might not come to pass. She Saw only in certainties, and she must not see her daughter beyond her fourth or fifth year.

She knew that her daughter would be well looked after. The Guardian of the Young, Merrel, was a kind soul, and there was also Kirrith, Arielle's sister. Kirrith was quite strict and stern most of the time, but she loved her sister, and looked after her, and Arielle knew that she would do the same for Lirael. Perhaps no substitute for a mother's hand, but that was beyond all control.

She hoped that having familial support would help to combat the pain of being a Sightless Clayr. Arielle had known a girl who had not received the Sight until fourteen years of age. It had been a trial for her, one that Arielle herself could barely comprehend, as she had gained the Sight on her eleventh birthday, and Kirrith had been Sighted for as long as Arielle could remember. She hoped that Lirael would be fine, for she would have more than enough pain in her short life.

Arielle sighed as she once more wished to avert a future, though she knew she would not, as much as could not. After all, as she heard from somewhere, its source now long forgotten from memory – _does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?_


End file.
